Solar + EV in One Building: How Smappee Infinity Integrates Panels, Charging and Load Management

For most strata buildings, solar panels and EV charging have been two separate conversations. The sustainability committee pushes for rooftop solar. The owners corporation discusses EV charging. The two projects get scoped, budgeted and installed separately, by different contractors, on different timelines, with no connection between them.

The result: a building generating solar power and running EV chargers, but with neither system aware the other exists. Solar energy gets exported to the grid at a low feed-in tariff. EV chargers draw power from the grid at full retail rates. The building pays for electricity it's simultaneously producing.

Smappee Infinity closes this gap. It isn't a charger with a solar feature bolted on — it's a whole-building energy management system that monitors solar generation, grid consumption, EV charging load and other circuits simultaneously, and actively optimises how power flows between them.

What Smappee Infinity Actually Is

Smappee Infinity is an intelligent energy management system that provides a single solution for dynamic load balancing between solar, EV charging and other appliances in a building, managed through a cloud-based application.

The core product is an energy monitor connected to the building's switchboard, measuring electricity consumption and production in real time, down to individual circuits and appliances where required. EV chargers connect directly to this monitoring system, giving the platform a complete picture of the building's energy flows at any given moment.

This is what distinguishes Smappee Infinity from simpler EV charging platforms. Most load management systems know about the EV chargers and the building's main supply. Smappee Infinity also knows about the solar panels, any battery storage, and the consumption patterns of other significant loads and uses all of that data simultaneously to make charging decisions.

How Solar Integration Works in Practice

The core function is solar surplus charging — directing excess solar generation into EV batteries rather than exporting it to the grid.

In a strata context: a building with rooftop solar generates power through daylight hours, typically peaking around midday. Building consumption during that period — lighting, lifts, common area systems — often doesn't fully absorb what the panels produce. Without integration, that surplus goes to the grid at the feed-in tariff rate, which in NSW currently sits well below the retail rate for electricity.

With Smappee Infinity, that surplus is redirected. The system monitors solar production and building consumption in real time, calculates the available surplus, and adjusts connected EV chargers' output accordingly — directing excess solar power into whichever vehicles are charging. It can be configured two ways: output limited strictly to excess solar, or set to prioritise solar while supplementing from the grid when surplus is insufficient. Both modes are selectable through the Smappee app and dashboard.

For strata buildings, the practical benefit is this: residents who charge during the day or whose vehicles sit parked and connected during business hours — receive solar-generated electricity rather than grid electricity. The owners corporation can track exactly how much solar energy went into each charging session, with split billing recording whether the energy came from solar or the grid.

Dynamic Load Management Across Multiple Chargers

Solar integration doesn't remove the need for load management. It adds a layer of intelligence on top of it.

When multiple residents charge simultaneously, the combined draw on the building's electrical system needs managing regardless of how much solar is generating. Smappee Infinity handles this through dynamic load balancing: the system monitors the grid feed to the building and sets an overload set point. As combined EV charger load approaches that limit, output is automatically adjusted across chargers to keep the set point from being exceeded.

This runs continuously. When one session ends and load drops, freed capacity is redistributed to remaining sessions. When building consumption spikes, a peak evening period, for example, charger outputs are modulated accordingly. Total load never exceeds the configured limit, regardless of how many vehicles are charging at once.

Solar generation feeds into this calculation in real time too. On a sunny afternoon, available capacity for EV charging is effectively higher, because solar is offsetting the building's baseline consumption, meaning more charging throughput during high-generation periods without approaching grid import limits.

Monitoring, Billing and Reporting

For strata managers, monitoring and billing matter as much as the energy management itself.

The platform provides real-time and historical data across all connected systems — solar production, grid consumption, individual EV charging sessions — through a professional dashboard and a resident-facing app. Building managers can check total solar generation, EV charging consumption and grid import figures at any time, with no manual data collection.

For billing, MID-certified energy meters — the same standard used for commercial billing — sit on the charging hardware, supporting accurate per-resident invoicing. The platform tracks solar energy used in each session, letting the OC apply a different rate for solar-sourced versus grid-sourced electricity, if the committee chooses.

This removes the administrative burden strata managers often cite as a concern with EV charging: no manual meter readings, no spreadsheets, no disputes about who used what. The data logs automatically and is accessible through the dashboard.

When Solar Integration Makes Sense and When It Doesn't

Not every strata building benefits equally from combining solar and EV charging under one platform. The case is strongest when several conditions line up:

• Solar is already installed, or genuinely planned. If solar is generating and currently exported at a low feed-in rate, redirecting that surplus to EV charging pays off immediately. If solar is planned, integrating Smappee Infinity from the outset means both systems are optimised together from day one.

• There's meaningful daytime EV demand. Solar surplus charging works best when vehicles are connected during daylight hours — residents working from home, on flexible hours, or parked during the day. Buildings where everyone is out from 8am to 6pm on weekdays will see less benefit from the solar integration specifically, though load management still holds its value.

• The rollout is substantial. At three or four chargers, the complexity of a whole-building energy management system can outweigh the benefit. At twenty or more charging points, the platform's ability to optimise across solar, grid and multiple simultaneous sessions becomes genuinely valuable — and the investment starts to make financial sense.

• The OC wants visibility across the building's total energy profile. Some owners corporations only need EV charging costs tracked. Others — particularly buildings with institutional owners, sustainability reporting obligations, or ESG commitments — benefit from one platform giving a full picture of energy consumption, generation and carbon footprint. Smappee Infinity is built for that broader scope.

The Assessment Comes First

As with any EV charging infrastructure decision, the right starting point is a building energy assessment — one covering electrical capacity for EV charging, the existing solar setup, switchboard condition, and the data points needed for a Smappee Infinity integration.

VeCharge works with Smappee Infinity as part of its strata solutions offering. If you want to know whether your building's solar and EV charging infrastructure could benefit from a combined management platform, a building assessment is where to start.

More on our solutions: vecharge.com/solutions.

Get in touch with the VeCharge team at info@vecharge.com or call 1300 315 688.